Living This Creative Life

I have two favorite quotes. The first one is by Emile Zola, "If you asked me what I came into this world to do, I would tell you that I came to live out loud". I don't know who the second one is by, but it goes like this, "If you're not living on the edge then you might as well jump". Both of these sentiments sum up my personal philosophy of this experience we call life on earth. Enjoy!

Thursday, June 13, 2013


Art Every Day, Thursday, June 13, 2013,

Ah, falling in love is such a splendid thing, and I love this little piece.  What absolute joy to be able to stitch a design then rub color over it and get this!
 
This is what it looked like before I rubbed it down with a Shiva paintstik.  I began by layering a piece of painted gray batting with a smaller piece of batting then topped that with black linen. I used a dark gray thread to stitch with and made sure to add some nice detail to the insides of the feathers along with the high contrast of long lines alternating with circles.  It was nice just quilted, but it really woke up when I rubbed the entire surface with the long side of a brown iridescent paintstik. 
I love the gilded look it has as well as the instant depth achieved.  I'm definitely going to make a much larger one of these!  I'm not sure what I've ever done that is more artistically enjoyable than quilting first then adding color after.  Such pleasure!

Till tomorrow,
Heather

1 comment:

me said...

WHOA!!! This is fantastic! Thank you so much for the before and after too, I really enjoyed seeing the big change!

The "gilding" of this really brings out all of the detail that your quilting put in, besides adding such sparkle and shine.

The gray thread also adds a nice layer of luminosity popping out little bits of light here and there.

There is lovely, soft movement in this, we can almost see it undulating with the wavy lines and veins of the feathers.

The paint really emphasizes the portions that are not stitched down and I imagine that they are very textural in person, as well as looking very visually textural.

This is such a rich piece and beautifully stitched, down to every detail.

I love that the edges are frayed, giving an unexpected finish to a piece that almost looks like jewelry set on marble- it sort of reminded me that I was actually looking at fabric and not at metal work.